1. Field of the Described Embodiments
The described embodiments relate generally to gaming systems, such as gaming systems deployed in a casino enterprise. More particularly, apparatus and method for developing and maintaining customer loyalty in the casino enterprise are described.
2. Description of the Related Art
Developing and maintaining a loyal customer base is a critical component of operating a successful casino enterprise. In a casino environment, an every changing mix of customers, including identified customers and unidentified customers, are present within the casino enterprise and utilizing casino services at any one time. To encourage customer loyalty, customers whose activities can be tracked and attributed to the customer can be rewarded based upon their utilization of casino services.
Casino enterprises often offer customers the chance to participate in a loyalty program that allows their activities to be tracked. For a customer to participate in a loyal program, the casino enterprise usually requires the customer to provide identifying information. Then, an instrument, such as a magnetic striped card, can be provided to the customer. The instrument can be utilized during various activities within the casino enterprise so that a record of the customer's activities are generated and stored to an account associated with the instrument. As an example, a customer can insert a magnetic-striped player tracking card into a card reader associated with a slot machine to have a record of their gaming activity on the slot machine stored to the account associated with the player tracking card. A disadvantage of this approach is that information stored on the instrument needs to be obtained before it can be attributed to an account associated with the instrument.
At any one time, many unidentified customers of a casino enterprise can be participating in activities that are valuable to a casino enterprise and the casino enterprise may wish to give them awards based upon their activities. However, because the customers have not made their identity known to the casino enterprise, their activities go unrewarded and the casino operator misses out on the opportunity to establish loyalty with potentially valuable customers. The customers may remain unidentified for a number of reasons. For instance, the unidentified customers can be 1) members of the casino enterprise's loyalty program that have forgotten to provide their loyalty program information during an activity, 2) new customers that are willing to have their identity known but have not signed up yet for the casino's loyalty program or 3) customers that are reluctant to give out their personal information and hence, remain anonymous.
Unidentified customers can represent a large fraction of a casino enterprise's revenue. To better tune their operating models and increase profitability, a casino enterprise desires to better know the demographics and behavioral patterns of their customers independent of their identity status within the casino enterprise. Further, casino enterprises wish to distinguish potentially valuable customers and learn their identity so that customer loyalty and hopefully, a pattern of repeat business can be established. In view of the above, methods and apparatus for attributing customer activities within a casino enterprise to particular customers independent of their identity status are desired.